


Cigarettes & Smoke (2)

by Keithan



Series: Cigarettes & Smoke [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-23
Updated: 2010-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keithan/pseuds/Keithan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How does a perfect soldier break away from a life of fighting and war to live in a time of peace?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarettes & Smoke (2)

  
**2.**

He raises a hand, signals one of the bartender closest to him. He doesn’t speak, but a small nod to his drink is enough, and soon after, a glass is placed in front of him with a soft thud. He watches the liquid inside swirl in movement, dangerously coming close to the mouth. He almost pushes it when not a drop spills.

He doesn’t remember what it is. It’s his fourth—no, sixth, or eighth, or maybe tenth? He doesn’t even remember that. At the back of his mind, he knows he should, because he remembers and notices the small little things, the seemingly insignificant details—the weight of his gun on his hand and the number of bullets left, the slightest movement behind him, the usually indiscernible shift in the shadows. He thinks it’s because he doesn’t really care. After all, his life now doesn’t depend on what he’s drinking, or on how many he’s had.

He looks down in front of him, at the ashtray he’s using, and he sees his cigarette with a faint, dying glow. He leaves it—untouched after his one initial drag—watching its ashes crumble and fall, leaving spots of black on the white ashtray. He frowns.

He reaches for his glass and lifts it to his lips, eyes still on the small pile of ashes and the spots here and there—he remembers the smoke, thick and black and suffocating, and the black soot and ashes falling from the sky above him as Wing Zero self-destructs, leaving him with nothing to go back to. His hand tightens on his glass and he already tastes the bitterness even before the liquid passes his lips. When he drinks, he concentrates more on the burning in his throat. He thinks he might be drunk. He’s not sure—he’s never been.

The lights on the bar are dim, but he wants to close his eyes to the neon lights on the dance floor behind him, reflected on the many bottles on the shelves—glinting red and green and yellow and blue—and when the bass thrums loudly in his ears, he wants to block out the sound. He tries not to think of the bright white light of something going up in flames, and the loud boom that follows it, tries harder not to think of the ones he had caused—and the lives that were lost because of it.

It was war—he had no other choice.

He tries not to care—about the neon lights and the loud bass—and he fingers the cigarette, making the length of ash fall away. In the darkness of his corner, with the company of smoke and the smell of alcohol too close, he forgets why he’s even there. He doesn’t think of the fact that he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go.

He hasn’t been there long, a few hours at most, and nobody has dared to bother him. But when somebody does, he is instantly alert and his hand shoots out just beside his face—he wonders if he will ever get drunk enough to get past war-honed reflexes—and grabs the thin, pale wrist trying to reach out in front of him to his cigarette. He turns a glare to his side, but when he sees the one standing there, he blinks and immediately loosens his tight grip. Other men would have cried out in pain, but Quatre merely shifts his eyes to the hand holding his wrist, before meeting his gaze again with a soft smile. The gratitude is not lost on him and he drops Quatre’s wrist at once.

He looks away, glares at his glass and at the ashtray. When they don’t give him answers, he reaches for his dying cigarette and lifts it to his lips, breathing life into it again. The tip glows orange, the white paper burning and turning into ash. He blows the smoke slowly, as if trying to cover the sigh he wants to let out. It curls in front of him, the smoke, slowly going up into the dim, neon-filled darkness. He frowns in distaste.

He opens his mouth, to ask one of the many questions running in his mind, but he is never good with words, and he thinks maybe he is drunk enough to even try, so he slips the cigarette between his lips instead and stays silent.

“They’re looking for you.”

He frowns and he feels the cigarette between his lips, feels the need to inhale the foul-tasting smoke. He does.

“And you’re not?” The words slip past his lips and he thinks he must be drunker than he thought if his tongue is so loose. He takes the cigarette in his fingers and flicks the ash on the white ashtray.

“I didn’t know you smoke.”

He wonders how Quatre found him, or if he was even looking at all. He doesn’t believe in chance though—after living through two wars and a childhood like his, there’s no such thing. But the war has ended, he reminds himself. Maybe in peace, he thinks, there exist chances—and choices—after all.

He looks at Quatre, then back at the cigarette he’s holding. He grounds it in the white ashtray. “I don’t.”

When Quatre smiles, he forgets the neon lights reflected on the bottles—glinting red and green and yellow and blue—and when Quatre says, “Come on,” the sound of the bass becomes a distant hum in his ears.

He feels Quatre’s hand on his wrist, gently pulling him up and away from the bar. He stands up, turning his back to the counter and the ash-covered white ashtray and the empty glasses on it. Quatre lets go.

“Come on,” Quatre says again. “I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t have a home,” he answers without thinking. Alcohol, he thinks, is not for him.

Quatre digs a hand into his pocket, and when he takes it out, he drops the money in it on the bar. “Then you can have mine, for as long as you need it,” he says, before holding out his hand.

He doesn’t know what makes him lift his hand to take Quatre’s own, doesn’t know why he feels it’s all right and safe. Maybe he is really drunk, after all, or maybe because it’s a choice—the first one given to him since the wars ended. He knows it doesn’t really matter, because Quatre doesn’t say anything—he only tightens his hold and doesn’t let go. Maybe, he thinks as he lets himself be led to the exit, he shouldn’t, either.

Silence and darkness greet them outside, and for the first time in a long while, he thinks he’s finally starting to feel at peace.

**15.11.09**


End file.
